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OverviewInternational organizations do not always live up to the expectations and mandates of their member countries. One of the best examples of this gap is the environmental performance of multilateral development banks, which are tasked with allocating and managing approximately half of all development assistance worldwide. In the 1980s and 1990s, the multilateral development banks came under severe criticism for financing projects that caused extensive deforestation, polluted large urban areas, displaced millions of people, and destroyed valuable natural resources. In response to significant and public failures, member countries established or strengthened administrative procedures, citizen complaint mechanisms, project evaluation, and strategic planning processes. All of these reforms intended to close the gap between the mandates and performance of the multilateral development banks by shaping the way projects are approved. Giving Aid Effectively provides a systematic examination of whether these efforts have succeeded in aligning allocation decisions with performance.Mark T. Buntaine argues that the most important way to give aid effectively is selectivity--moving towards projects with a record of success and away from projects with a record of failure for individual recipient countries. This book shows that under certain circumstances, the control mechanisms established to close the gap between mandate and performance have achieved selectivity. Member countries prompt the multilateral development banks to give aid more effectively when they generate information about the outcomes of past operations and use that information to make less successful projects harder to approve or more successful projects easier to approve. This argument is substantiated with the most extensive analysis of evaluations across four multilateral development banks ever completed, together with in-depth case studies and dozens of interviews. More generally, Giving Aid Effectively demonstrates that member countries have a number of mechanisms that allow them to manage international organizations for results. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Mark T. BuntainePublisher: Oxford University Press Inc Imprint: Oxford University Press Inc Dimensions: Width: 16.30cm , Height: 2.60cm , Length: 24.20cm Weight: 0.516kg ISBN: 9780190467456ISBN 10: 0190467452 Pages: 304 Publication Date: 09 June 2016 Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Tertiary & Higher Education , Professional & Vocational Format: Hardback Publisher's Status: Active Availability: To order  Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us. Table of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgements 1 The Problem of Performance 2 The Politics of Aid Effectiveness 3 Addressing the Problem of Performance 4 Administrative Procedures: Avoiding Delays with Environmentally Risky Projects 5 Accountability Mechanisms: Civil Society Claims for Environmental Performance 6 Project Evaluations: Learning What Works 7 Strategic Planning: Integrating Evaluation into High-Level Decision-Making 8 Conclusions and Implications Appendix I Data Collection Procedures Appendix II A Brief History of Evaluation at the Multilateral Development Banks Notes References IndexReviewsWinner, 2017 Don K. Price Award, APSA Science, Technology & Environmental Section Buntaine uses such cases to illustrate the 'approval imperative' that stems from the interests of donor countries, citizen groups, and international aid organizations. As a result, countries that receive aid are rarely under serious pressure to undertake needed reforms and in fact use the funds to reward favored political constituencies. -S. Paul, Elizabethtown College Giving Aid Effectively is a carefully researched and lucidly written book examining how project evaluation, strategic planning, citizen complaint mechanisms, and administrative procedures influence the environmental performance of multilateral development banks. I strongly recommend it for scholars of environmental governance and international organizations. -Aseem Prakash, Walker Family Professor, University of Washington This pathbreaking book teaches us how member governments manage the discretion they delegate to international organizations through information and incentives. And it does this while providing a rich and systematic empirical exposition of policies at the multilateral development banks intended to avoid environmental risks, promote clean energy, and abate urban pollution. Either contribution alone would make the book noteworthy; both together make Buntaine's Giving Aid Effectively a major contribution to scholarship on international organizations. -Daniel Nielson, Professor, Brigham Young University Giving Aid Effectively is a major contribution to the vast literature on the political economy of aid, providing a novel theory of the conditions driving aid selectivity, as well as rich empirical evidence on environmental spending by multilateral development banks. This is a must-read for all who want to understand how aid is given, to whom, and why. -Catherine Weaver, Associate Professor, University of Texas at Austin What measures do international organizations take to improve the environmental performance of their aid programs? How do they determine which ones work and which ones don't? Mark T. Buntaine makes an important contribution to solving these puzzles with a sharply focused study of concessionary lending by multilateral development banks (MDBs). His purpose is both analytical and prescriptive, and his book is thought-provoking in both regards. - Global Environmental Politics Buntaine uses such cases to illustrate the 'approval imperative' that stems from the interests of donor countries, citizen groups, and international aid organizations. As a result, countries that receive aid are rarely under serious pressure to undertake needed reforms and in fact use the funds to reward favored political constituencies. -S. Paul, Elizabethtown College Author InformationMark T. Buntaine is Assistant Professor in the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |
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